Finding Their Balance (28 page)

Years of saving.

As Henry straightened, his chest broadened and his hands steadied. “I’m satisfied with my vehicle, but should we require a larger one in the future, or even a second car, the money would be yours to spend as you like.”

A car. A house. A honeymoon for three. A college fund. Exciting, frightening possibilities glimmered on the horizon. “Would an account earn more money than putting the rent toward my student loans would save?”

“I don’t know.” He extended his hand, palm up in invitation. “Shall I ask Will to set aside time for us to discuss your options with this new flexibility in your budget?”

“Yeah.” She crossed the kitchen. “Let’s do that.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she pressed herself to his warm back. “Have I told you I love you yet today?”

He rested his hands atop hers. “You did make incoherent sounds this morning that I might have interpreted as a declaration of love.”

She squeezed. “I love you.”

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her softly. “I love you as well.” Blowing out a breath, he rocked her along his back. “I was about to put together a hearty casserole for supper. I expect Jay will return with an appetite. Would you care to help?”

She nodded, rubbing her face against his shirt before she let him go. Appetite was one thing Jay had in spades—for food, for sex, for affection and approval. She wasn’t so different.

She and Henry worked together quietly, comfortably, weaving around each other from task to task as if they’d done so for years. Every so often, their gazes met.

Smoldering. Yeah, she’d totally called that one right.

* * * *

The deadbolt thudded into its unlocked position, the sound almost obscured by the radio’s swelling piano. From her perch on the couch, Alice waved toward the kitchen.

Setting his tea aside, Henry nodded. As he strode past the dining room table, the front door swung open.

When Jay stepped inside, duffel slung over his shoulder, he came toe to toe with his immovable master. The slump in his posture disappeared.

Advised not to interfere, she kept to her cozy scrunch, though the article on the benefits of machined springs over coiled wire in lateral bending attracted a whopping zero percent of her attention. The dark, curling strands of hair falling over Jay’s forehead, those merited at least fifteen percent.

“Welcome back. Are you pleased to be home, my boy?” Henry, projecting his neutral dom-voice, fell into the questioning rhythm of a scene opener. “Did you have fun?”

“It feels good.” Clutching the strap across his chest in both hands, Jay kneaded and rubbed the black canvas. His shoe squeaked on the hardwood. “Peggy had lots of stuff planned for me.”

He’d missed so much this weekend. The return of her flogger, her first games with her new toy, their night at the club. Two days had wrought so many changes in her. How different and unrecognizable might he be after his time away?

With a single soft hum, Henry suggested he believed in Jay’s purported comfort even less than she did. “Do you need the restroom?”

“No, Henry.” Shadows clung to the underside of his eyes. Must’ve been a wild birthday party.

“Lovely.” Henry stepped back. Squaring his shoulders and lifting his head, he completed a simple but unmistakable transformation. His silence held the power to pin Jay in place. No doubt he delivered an intense green-eyed stare. “Strip down and present yourself to me.”

The bag plonked to the floor. Jay hauled his shirt over his head, dropped it, and started on his fly. Obedience came swift and unquestioning, accompanied by a massive smile. A scant three feet inside the apartment, he stood naked and vibrating before their master. His tentative clutching and shifting dissolved into an at-ease pose.

Henry prowled, ruffling the sparse hair on Jay’s chest and rubbing the muscled curves of his arms. “Did you complete the homework I assigned you?”

Jay’s cock jerked. “Yes, Master Henry.”

Henry had been right. Jay’s pull to submit after his time away altered even the way he instinctively responded to a dominant tone. The formal “master,” not often in use at home, suited his need to reconnect.

“Excellent.” Massaging Jay’s shoulders, Henry shot her a slight smile. He’d missed Jay as much as she had, though he’d muted his emotional responses in some dom-certified version of reassurance. “You’ll provide a demonstration for your playmate and me after dinner.”

Breathing deep, Jay bowed his head. “Thank you, Master Henry.”

With a predatory swoop, Henry grabbed his cheeks in a vise grip and snatched a kiss.

Jay topped out on the hardness scale, his cock near vertical. His crooning, submissive whimper escaped their fused mouths. As their liplock ended, he gave a jaunty bounce and wag.

“Go and put your things away, please.” Henry pushed hair back from Jay’s forehead, his love no less in the commanding baritone than in the gentle caress. “When you’ve finished, you may set the table. Bring a clean towel from the linen closet to sit on for dinner.”

“No clothes?” Sweet, wide-eyed Jay poured lilting hope into his voice.

“Not for you.” In flattening his hand against Jay’s chest, Henry re-attuned himself to the speed of Jay’s heart and reminded them both of his mantle of responsibility and protection. “I’ve been denied my boy’s beauty for more than forty-eight hours. We’ll require extensive nudity to balance the scales.”

“Thank you, Henry.” Staring at the hand on his chest, Jay grew quiet. He swayed forward.

Henry enclosed him in an embrace, tucking Jay against his neck and stroking his hair. Jay’d get to blow off sexual steam in his after-dinner demo, but bedtime would be a story and snuggling. Maybe part of why Henry had worn her out this morning.

Jay sure needed the TLC. Weird, how a guy who loved his family to pieces and dropped everything to visit home so often returned more ragged and emotionally frayed than when he’d left.

“You’re always welcome, my dear boy.” Henry kissed the top of Jay’s dark head. “However far you go, my arms wait for your return.”

* * * *

A low moan hit Alice as the apartment door swung open Monday night. A second answered—muted, and at a slightly higher pitch. Jay. Apologizing, probably. Good. He ought to.

She allowed the nastiness rather than shoving it down, and recovery came easier. Fading without effort or tension, her anger dissipated in the time it took to lay her phone in the charger and slip off her shoes. Jay was too sweet to hurt them intentionally. If he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready. He knew his family. Maybe they’d flip out about his relationship with Henry. Bringing two lovers along might’ve been impossible to explain.

In stocking feet, she entered the dining room. The table had been set. The thick aroma of tomato and garlic told her Henry had pasta in the oven. Both normal Monday homecomings, neither competed with the unexpected beauty her men presented.

Back to the kitchen wall, Henry stood with his pants hanging open. As Jay buried his face between his legs, praise and encouragement fell in equal measure from his lips. Henry met her gaze and moved his mouth without a sound.
Welcome home.

Unwilling to break Jay’s rhythm, she nodded in silence.

Head bobbing, cheeks hollowing, Jay had gone past the point of licking, teasing variation. He jammed his splayed hands against the wall beside Henry’s hips. Maybe his “punishment” included using nothing but his mouth to touch Henry—or himself. Safe bet Jay’s pants stretched tighter across his erection than they did his delectable ass.

Thrusting shallow, Henry gripped Jay by the hair. A harder thrust, a low growl, and Jay’s throat rippled as he swallowed.

Their game ended too soon for anything but the faintest stirring of her arousal. Bad timing. If she hadn’t hit the T stop as a train pulled away and had to wait, she would’ve been home fifteen minutes sooner. Might’ve gotten a floor seat for the entire pre-dinner show.

With tender strokes, Henry smoothed the clumping mess he’d made of Jay’s hair. “Well done. You do beautiful, passionate work.” He patted Jay’s hands. “You’re free to move these now, so long as you don’t touch yourself.”

As Jay let go with a soft suction-pop, he wriggled his arms around the back of Henry’s thighs and burrowed against his stomach. “Thank you, Henry. I am sorry. I know I need to tell them. Next time. I promise.”

Rather than inform Jay she stood listening, Henry slid into a crouch and cradled him. “Not until you’re ready, my brave boy. You’ve nothing to apologize for, though you do so with much-appreciated attention to detail. Your love is evident in your smallest actions. You needn’t give up your family’s love to enjoy mine, dearest—nor Alice’s, either.”

In a shared glance, she confirmed his belief, his faith in her. Even if years passed before she met Jay’s family, she wouldn’t stop loving him. Hell, her parents weren’t lining up for introductions. Of course, she spoke to hers a few times a year, and Jay seemed stuck in perpetual college-freshman homesickness.

“Was she mad? She didn’t act it yesterday, but I ditched you both.” Jay’s thin tenor didn’t belong to a man who’d just celebrated his thirtieth birthday. “Do you think she’ll accept an apology?”

Silly to get upset over a core element of his personality, especially one she loved. His submissive need to please hadn’t appeared from nothing. Felt so to him because he hadn’t discovered how to satisfy those desires sexually until a few years ago. Exploring his needs had exposed him to predators. But he had Henry now. And her. And probably an overprotective family, which answered why he didn’t want to explain his lovers to them.

“I think you might ask her yourself.” Henry waved her forward. “But I doubt our lovely girl feels she needs an apology any more than I did.”

Eyes wide and dark, Jay lifted his head as she crossed the room.

“Henry’s right, sweetheart. No apologies needed.” Joining them on the floor, she curved around him and kissed his cheek. “But I won’t turn one down, if you’re handing them out for free and Henry doesn’t have other plans for us.”

Apologizing would ease Jay’s fears. When he thought he’d done wrong, he needed to make it right. And Henry always found a safe way to let him.

Bent over the foot of the bed, her legs spread, Alice practiced patience.

Poorly.

Jay’s gleaming steel toy had disappeared inside him while he issued no protests and more than a few pleases. Hers waited in her cupped hand, its smooth weight secure in her palm. Two Saturday afternoons in a row with her Intro to Anal Pleasure workshop. New for her, but continuing education for Jay.

“Now you’re properly attired for the day.” Henry trailed a finger down the curve of Jay’s ass. “Quite handsome. Quite”—he cupped Jay’s cheeks in both hands—“tempting.”

Mirroring her pose, Jay flashed dark eyes and grasped the sheets. When they’d lain in this position last fall, he’d shaken with nerves as Henry tested her responses to impact play. His swirling confidence and happy whimpers today belonged to a different Jay. On this road, he traveled faster than her. But she’d finally started catching up.

Jay squirmed backward, wiggling his hips off the bed.

With a last squeeze, Henry stepped away. “Our girl will make a lovely match.”

“Sorry I missed your first playdate with your new toy.” Jay folded his elbows underneath his chest and scooted closer. His shower-fresh earthy pine tickled her nose. “Can’t wait to see it in you.”

“I can’t wait to feel it in me.” Uncurling her fingers, she offered up her plug. Half the heft of Jay’s, but thrill-size for her.

Henry plucked the toy from her hand.

Jay swiped a kiss, his apologetic tug on her lip paired with shiny-eyed sincerity.

Palm heavy and digging in, Henry rubbed a circle along the top of her ass. “You gave your toy an enthusiastic welcome last week.”

Fuck, he parted her lips and delved deep. Thick and hot as an extra winter blanket, he induced fever-chills with his strokes.

“And your excitement hasn’t ebbed, I see.” He slipped free, humming, and dragged his fingers across her ass. A drizzle of lube slicked her for him.

Relaxing her ass, pushing to draw him in, turned her legs wobbly.

Sturdy-hipped Jay shored her up.

“Very much in sync,” Henry murmured. “Thank you, my boy.”

Between the new game and the praise, Jay had to be burning a hole in the bedsheets with his cock.

When Henry swapped his fingers for her toy, the wide flare stretched her with ever-present pressure, demanding and satisfying and occupying the space meant for him. The one she’d give him soon.

“Stand up straight, my dears.” Circling the bed, Henry cleaned his fingers and tossed the used cloth.

As she copied Jay’s at-ease pose, metal grazed her thigh. She jammed her cheeks together. Jesus. In her hand, the weight hadn’t felt nearly so heavy.

“Such a well-behaved pair of pets deserves more extensive play.” Steeped in power and presence, Henry surveyed them from his post beside the nightstand. Though he’d stripped and toyed with them—literally—he retained his dress slacks, his button-down, and the tie he’d worn for her birthday last fall. The tie’s leaded lines and colored panes had etched into her wrists, a permanent but invisible tattoo of his ownership and Jay’s devotion.

“A reward for their diligence.” As he passed them, Henry caressed their asses.

She sneaked a peek—though Henry smiled, because he knew, he always knew—at the lean line of Jay’s cock, firm and proud. He held his pose with only the obvious betraying his excitement.

The slow glide of wood rasping on wood inflamed her imagination. Opening a drawer in the special dresser meant Henry had more planned. She sucked every drop of sweetness from the idea. Bondage? For her or Jay. For her and Jay. But Henry had filled them with toys. If he let them play with each other, where would he fit himself?

Jay. His full lips and sleek tongue. The image seared her with simple beauty, Jay hollowing his cheeks in eagerness, Henry reshaping Jay’s throat with his length.

Henry stroked the top of the open drawer. “But I’ll need something from them both first.”